use of tilde in R

Question

When is ~ used in R? Why is y~x used instead of x,y in some ploting functions?

Answer 1

One use of ~ is to mention x,y dimensions for plots.

Such as boxplot(y~x, [attr] = [val].....)

Where y, x are fields to plot in y and x-axis.

Some of the functions in R take values as (y,x), that is when ~ is used. In most of the functions (x,y) form is followed.